If you're new to status programs, you may want to start with our article on Introduction to Loyalty Status Programs. In it, we discuss the basic componentry of status programs, as well as provide some general guidance and some real life examples of each.

If you've already been introduced to status programs, then this article offers a look at how to leverage status programs to drive value in your app.

When used effectively, higher tiers in loyalty status programs can become very sought after by members of loyalty programs, and as a result, members can become equally more valuable for the company. Once you nail this, you can expect engaged loyalty members to increase their LTV 25-50% over members who haven't engaged.

On this page...

The Basics: Thinking about awareness, value perception, and chase motivation.
The Two Motivations: Ensuring you satisfy both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.
Other Considerations: What else should a successful status program do?
Real-life Examples: We'll cover some examples of companies doing it right.
Putting it Into Action: We'll help you put these learnings into action with a downloadable PDF.

Let's get started and be better together!

Introduction to Loyalty Status Programs

First of all, the basics

The best place to start when designing your status program experience is to ask yourself three questions:

Will this design ensure that my players are sufficiently aware of the program?
Will this design ensure that my players value the program?
Will this design ensure that my players are motivated to chase higher status?

Let's briefly discuss each one.

Awareness

First and foremost, to have a successful status program that drives value and impacts member behavior, your players must be aware of it. To ensure players are aware of the program, you must merchandise it. (Don't expect that they'll go exploring and stumble across it. Even if they do, don't expect them to voluntarily study it and all of its complexities enough to fully absorb the framework and become a motivated participant.)

When creating awareness, keep these two best practices in mind:

You should make sure fairly early in the player's lifecycle that they are told about the program and the benefits are extolled. That said, it shouldn't be TOO early. Players need time to absorb the general content of the game first. Introduction would ideally happen in conjunction with a positive moment (association), such as their first tier up, or a big moment that's bigger because of their tier.
Piecemeal your status program education so it isn't overwhelming. Spoonfeed them. There is a LOT to take in for a mature status program. Decide what makes sense to convey in that moment and focus only on that message. If you try to overwhelm them with every aspect of the program, or simply drop them into the main program UI, they will undoubtedly abandon the flow and you'll have missed the opportunity.

What's Important:

Your players are aware of the program and its benefits. Deliberately educate them at the right time, and don't overwhelm them with too much education.

Value Perception

Next, members must value it. That means the benefits they get at each level are the right benefits. The rest of this article will be dedicated to this topic.

It also means that in each critical moment, the benefits are reinforced. The two key occasions for reinforcing the benefit are (a) when players are tiering up, and (b) where the benefits are being awarded. (For example, if players get 50% more of a currency on their daily login because they're Tier 3, this should be communicated during their daily login grant.)

What's Important:

Your players are aware of and value the benefits being awarded at each tier level.

Chase

Finally, members must understand and be motivated for the chase. Members must understand and value the benefits of their current tier, but also the next tier. When appropriate, find opportunities to "tease" this or introduce them to what benefits are in store for them in the next tier up.

Members need to intrinsically understand where they are toward that goal. At key moments (such as a big Tier Point grant, or when they're VERY CLOSE to tiering up), show them their progress toward the goal of reaching the next tier.

Beyond awareness of the program and valuing the benefits of it, there are two things that will drive chase motivation in your members:

Investment/Progress: When members feel invested, they are driven to reach the fruits of that investment. Help them understand how invested they are!
Almost There: Chase motivation really picks up as members approach status increase. Capitalize on these moments by merchandising how close they are. (For example, if certain in-app purchases would push them into the next tier, merchandise it.)

What's Important:

Create chase motivation by teasing future benefits (the goal), demonstrating investment (the progress), and merchandising leading up to tier-up moments (the reward).

Measuring the Basics

When you partner with playAWARDS, we not only help you frame out this experience, we also help you measure it.

Awareness and Value Perception: The most effective way to learn how you're doing with regards to awareness and value perception is to ask your members! playAWARDS can work with you to structure and execute member surveys.
Chase Motivation: You can measure if you're successfully creating player chase by looking at the data. Players tend to change their behavior as they approach both tiering up and tier expiry. playAWARDS will work with you to measure your chase motivation success rate.

Example: PUBG

Battle passes are status programs. They let players tier up for being loyal (engagement and monetization), then award higher-tiered players with better benefits and more in-game perks.

PUBG Mobile's Royale Pass program is their take on a status program and it works for them because they're ALL IN.

Awareness

PUBG has heavy UI presence for their status program, making it pretty hard for players to not know their rank.

In it, players "rank up" by completing missions, participating in events, and opening crates, so these all become moments to merchandise the program.

Each season, they re-visit and re-up the program, creating these huge merchandising moments to unveil what's new and different, including in-game trailers, launch events, and even create dedicated feature pages for the new season on their website.

Value

Ranking up is the main way to unlock more loot, so players really value it. The rewards include a combination of functional benefits like weapons and aesthetic ones like skins, speaking to both types of player motivation.

Players can rank up faster with an Elite Pass by spending in-game currency, and gain instant access to limited items. This makes players want to BUY their way up, burning a monetizing currency and driving revenue for the PUBG Mobile.

Chase

Since passes are season-based, they expire each year. Since players can buy their way up faster with previously-earned currency, PUBG is able to balance expiring status with rewarded loyalty.

First of all, the basics

So you've got the basics in place and you're ready to start driving value for your players and your app! How should you think about the benefits you attach to your status program?

Your players have two motivations – intrinsic/emotional and extrinsic/rational. So which one should you focus on? It's a trick question! The right set of status program incentives requires that you address both types. Here's why:

Some players will tend to lean into one more than the other, and vice versa.
That said, ALL players require both. It's human nature. The rational benefits are the reasons they tell themselves. It's how the logic center of their brain justifies chasing and maintaining higher tiers. Meanwhile, the intrinsic motivators are what really guides them. Intrinsic motivators speak to their reptilian brain. That's the part of the brain that's always on. The one that makes 99% of decisions.

Rational

Emotional

Sentiment

"I get my money's worth"

"I am a valuable customer. I am special."

Motivation Type

Extrinsic

Intrinsic

Brain Center

Primate / Logical

Reptilian / Instinctive

Role

How they justify their actions and decisions

What really guides their actions and decisions

Buzz Words

"Offer"

"Discount"

"Bonus"

"Status"

"Exclusive"

"Achievement"

Benefits Types

Points

Dollars

Preferred Pricing

Exclusivity

Community

Special Access

Special Privileges

Exclusive Benefits

Experiences

Examples of Benefits You Could Provide In Your Game

More in-game currency in free faucets
More in-game currency in paid faucets
Bigger in-game bonuses with wins
Free / discounted play
More time to play specific content
More potent power-ups

Access to exclusive in-game content
Early access to new releases
Dedicated in-game events just for higher-tiered players
Special / better parallel tracks on in-game events for higher tier players
Exclusive access to game cosmetics, like avatars, backgrounds, themes, and more
Peacocking and badging
Access to better customer support or to a VIP host
Access to exclusive rewards and loyalty-centric benefits

What Does It Take to Make VIPs Feel Special?

Your app's VIPs aren't just special because they are responsible for an outsized portion of your app's revenue. They're also special because they're used to feeling special. Because they deserve to be special. Systematic appreciation won't do for this group. Your most demanding and discerning players require a truly genuine human experience. The playAWARDS VIP Host Team does just that.

Our VIP Host program delivers a one-on-one relationship to players who reach a certain VIP/Spend level. This service includes game support, curated reward and trip planning, milestone celebrations, exclusive invites to special events, tournaments and player reactivation.

Our Hosts make it a priority to build relationships with players in ways that enhance our customer loyalty and develop frequency of game activity and monetization. Higher engagement from our Host team typically equals more spend from our players. We track re-activation efforts, and prioritize player engagement with those who have not monetized in 7 days.

By providing a white-glove experience, our VIP players feel valued, pampered, and are eager to continue playing, monetizing, and engaging with our games. As a result, they'll stick around longer and invest more in your app. Click here for a spotlight of one of our amazing hosts, Michelle.

What kind of service and benefits does a hosted player receive?

Players have a single point of contact:

The player receives one-on-one service through the hosting program.
This channels all customer service & communication through their host.
It creates a personal relationship between host and player.

They gain access to opaque benefits:

Reinvestment with complimentary in-game currency.
Assist with securing unavailable rewards.
Selectively offer custom, one-off rewards.

Of course, managing all of the above requires a robust player management tool for tracking both the player and the actions taken by the host. playAWARDS has built such a system, and when you partner with us, we help you plug your app and your players into it. For a full demonstration of the capabilities of the playAWARDS Player Management Tool, reach out to your Client Success Manager.

When you partner with playAWARDS, we will bring a set of benefits as well. As players tier up, they'll have access to more rewards, better rewards, looser restrictions, higher LP earning capabilities, and more.

Final Thoughts... Pave Their Path

Once you've identified your benefit set you're 90% of the way there! Getting that final 10% is all about merchandising. It's not enough to have the benefits – you must pave the way for them. This will make their decisions super easy to make.

As you do pave the path, keep this in mind:

Make it crystal clear. Do this, get that.
Simplify. Don't hit them with too much. Focus their attention on ONE next benefit that they're close to, and ONE next way they can achieve it.

This requires knowing what your players want by tier. (And yes, it will be different by tier.) Fortunately, playAWARDS can help you with gathering and synthesizing this information!

Other considerations: What else should a successful status program do?

Congratulations! You're successful at the basics. You've also constructed a great set of benefits that speaks to both types of motivations. So what's next? How should you think about your status program more holistically? Successful status programs should also achieve the following:

Increase Engagement

"I get to have more fun because of my status."

Carve out certain content in your game that's exclusively for members above a certain tier
Run liveops events in your game that are exclusively for members above a certain tier
Additional daily bonus games for members above a certain tier
Exclusive collectibles only for members above a certain tier

Ways you could execute this in your game

Sentiment

Goal

Engender Belonging

"My membership makes me feel special in this app."

Change the cosmetics of the game by tier (icons, backgrounds, account screens, badging, etc.
Offer discounts by tier

Make Monetization More Rewarding

"I look forward to the times when I receive a membership bonus or freebie with my purchase."

Grant more currency with each in-app purchase to higher tier players
Provide exclusive in-app purchase offers for higher tier players
Add special bonus mechanics to purchase gamification for higher tier players

Generate FOMO

"I want to participate in a particular member-only experience, so I'm motivated to earn more now!"

Hold real-life events exclusively for high-tier players
Have special VIP check-in, areas, and experiences exclusively for high-tier players
Ask yourself how you can create the same kind of feeling inside your game

Amplify Switching Costs

"I don't want to waste time or money on that competitor app because I've built up tons of equity in my current membership."

The more special you can make each progressively higher tier, the more invested members will feel.
Create a brand for groups of tiers, or for major tier milestones, and celebrate those statuses. Assign stair step graduation of benefits at those milestones.

Amplify the Customer's Emotional Connection to the Brand

"I love this brand! They take such good care of me."

Find the customer’s emotional connection point to the brand. Are you fun or exciting? Challenging? Relaxing? Identify how your players feel when they engage with you.
Build on that connection point. Ask yourself, "How can I increase / heighten the experience for my players as they tier up in a way that further evokes and strengthens that feeling for them?"

Help Them Rationalize Their Decisions

"I'm okay purchasing in this game because they're always comping me stuff."

The best justifications for continued player investment will be everything on the RATIONAL column of our Two Motivations table. Discounts, bonuses, etc.
The other big driver here will be reinvestment. The player with $1,000 in spend can quickly justify it when their host sends them a $100 gift card.

Focus on the Best Customers (Current and Potential)

"I'm the top tier in this game, so they take REALLY good care of me."

For many games, especially IAP games, a top minority of the most valuable players will account for an outsized amount of your game's revenue. Catering to this group is akin to picking the lowest hanging fruit.
The other aspect of catering to the top end is that they often offer enough reinvestment $ to afford some really interesting and compelling benefits! For example, if you have a player with > $1,000 in spend in your game, and you're comfortable reinvesting, say, 10%, then you can spend/reinvest up to $100 in that player.
You can do this in the form of in-app benefits or even hard expenses, such as sending them swag or real-life leisure/entertainment.
The more you make them feel super appreciated, the more connected they'll feel!

Final thoughts on value: A/B Test it!

Before we go on to examples, there is one final though on how to drive value through a status program in your app. Test it!

There's a loot of moving parts in a status program and a lot of assumptions must be made in setting one up. Each one of those assumptions could be tested in one way or another with your actual player base.

Where it;s a true A/B test, a "fake door" test, use testing, gathering zero-party data, or another method, when you partner with playAWARDS, we can help you with it every step of the way!

Which companies or industries are doing it right?

Some 60% of large companies around the globe have a loyalty program. Certainly nearly every household name out there has a loyalty program, and if you've done business with that company, you've no doubt encountered them. Amazon Prime, Delta SkyMiles, Starbucks Rewards, Sephora Beauty Insider, Nordstrom Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy, Best Buy Rewards, Chipotle Rewards, World of Hyatt, MGM Rewards, and LEGO Insiders, to name a few. No doubt there are countless examples of loyalty programs to ponder!

In this section, let's leave the mobile gaming space and highlight a few that provide interesting and helpful examples or demonstrations of core concepts of a successful status program.

Marriot Bonvoy

Marriot Bonvoy offers different status tiers based on qualifying stays or nights per calendar year, including Silver, Gold, Platinum, Titanium, and Ambassador. Each tier unlocks progressively richer benefits, such as room upgrades, late checkout, and bonus points on stays. Note how the collection of benefits include both extrinsic (bonus points, member rates) and intrinsic (Ambassador Service).

When it comes to their most important guests, Bonvoy takes VIP treatment seriously. Bonvoy seeks out opportunities to offer money-can't-buy experiences for their VIPs that personalize the guest's interactions and leave VIPs feeling special and recognized, such as recognizing personal preferences, personalized greetings, enhanced amenities, and exclusive event invitations.

The other big success for Bonvoy is consistency. They have worked hard to bring thousands of properties and dozens of brands all under "one roof." Whether you're a budget or luxury shopper, they've built out a program that's consistent across the portfolio yet catered to that market. This wasn't easy. Especially following acquisitions that brought new brands into their collection, Bonvoy has dedicated the resources to ensuring the program has streamlined benefits and policies across the entire portfolio, and consistency and ease of use for its members.

In summary, Bonvoy created a world-class status program by creating a consistent program across every brand and interaction, including both intrinsic and extrinsic benefits for all tiers of members, and identifying and executing ways to leave their VIPs feeling extra special and recognized.

MGM Rewards

MGM Rewards, previously known as Mlife, is the loyalty program for all MGM Resort Properties. With campaigns like "Why Be A Guest When You Can Be A Member?" and "Earn on Everything," the company has centered the majority of their advertising around the loyalty program.

MGM boasts that "members earn on everything" (casino play, hotel stays, dining, and more). They have worked diligently to train tens of thousands of employees and connect hundreds of disparate systems across dozens of properties so the experience of earning Tier Credits and benefiting from higher tiers is as seamless and effortless as possible for their members.

MGM Rewards Tiers include:

Sapphire
Pearl
Gold
Platinum
Noir

MGM Rewards checks all the boxes of a successful loyalty program:

They increase engagement by giving higher-tiered members access to more free play.
They engender belonging by offering a personalized, special experience at their reservations desks, check-in desks, and table game pits.
They make monetization more rewarding because higher-tier members earn credits and play at a faster rate than lower-tiered members.
They create FOMO with exclusive invitations for higher tiered members.
They amplify switching costs by letting you earn all year, then letting that status carry over to the next year. Members want to continue to stay and enjoy where they have higher status, then while they're staying and enjoying, they're earning once again toward the following year in a virtuous cycle of loyalty!
They amplify emotional connection through VIP hosts who offer that personalized human touch.
They help members rationalize their decision by throwing a huge spectrum of benefits at players in all sorts of forms.
They focus on their best customers with the Noir tier, plastering Noir benefits everywhere in their hotels, casino floors, restaurants and more, making it clear that there are Noir members... then there's everyone else. In fact, graduating to Noir is much more about the emotional perks than anything else. What's MOST important to this group is that they "feel" special. High VIPs are way past nickle-and-diming.

Tier benefits include:

Rational

Emotional

Free and discounted show tickets
Slot dollars
Dining credits
Resort fee waived
Free self-parking
Air travel credits
Cruise benefits

Access to the resort cars
Dedicated VIP lines at the buffet
Dedicated VIP lines for hotel check-in
Room upgrades
Late check-out
Expedited valet and taxi service
VIP hosts
Special VIP plates in the buffet
Personalized treatment at table games
Invitations to exclusive dinners, parties, and events

Tier Credits expire annually, but apply to the following year

Put into action

You've learned the basics. You've learned how to have benefits that cater to both members' intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. You learned all about how status programs can engender belonging, generate FOMO, and amplify switching costs. So what's next?

Let's put it into action! Click below to download our PDF worksheets that create a guided brainstorm of how you can take these concepts and put them into action in your app!

And of course, if you're partnered with playAWARDS, you're not doing this alone! Reach out to us and we'll work with you every step of the way!

Download the PDF